Lucky number Seven!

7 years and 2 graduations...

7 years and two cars, one truck, and a van...

7 years and 5 homes (all rental of course)...

7 years and 3 adorable little children...

7 years and 7 different jobs...

7 years of travel to: Calgary, Edmonton, Kalispell, Greatfalls, Vancouver, Seattle, Spokane, and Florida...

7 years of some hard times, but mostly good with one really, really hard time...

7 years with you Ry have been incredible, and definitely the very best years of my life! I wouldn't want to do any of it without you!

Love you a billion times X 7 (thats a lot)








And Thankyou for taking me to Orlando for our anniversary! Best anniversary present ever! (yet anyway!!!)

Grateful!

I know, I know, Canadian Thanksgiving was last month, but my being grateful actually has nothing to do with American Thanksgiving. I guess its just been one of those weeks. I guess it has to do with being stuck in the house all week. Most people hate it and go stir crazy but I LOVE IT! So here's my list:

Being able to stay in my P.j's pretty much all day, everyday this week!

Watching movies with the kiddies!

A husband who dropped off and picked up Nate this week as much as he could so that we didn't have to go out in the cold!

A van that runs well in cold weather!

Being at home with nothing to do means that my house stays pretty clean!

Carrie Underwood's new song "There's a Place for Us" check it out, it is so good!

A power outage at the clinic last night meant no work for me! Another day I didn't have to get dressed or go out!

Listening to Nate read! I still can't believe how well he's doing!

Hot chocolate and hot baths!

Having a warm and cozy house to be in while its cold and windy outside!

Lot's of time to read from my Mom's journals! Here's some entries that made me even more grateful...


March 30, 1979

"Delon (her brother) is now stationed in Glasgow (serving a mission) and he said the living conditions are pretty rough. He says he is always cold and their flat isn't very modern. I guess they have to operate their furnace by putting coins in it. Imagine!! Don't we take such simple things for granted?"

July 8, 1979

"Our gas was turned off today, as we couldn't afford to pay our bill. Dad insisted on helping us pay it, but I didn't dare take him up on his offer. Jim wouldn't have liked that. We've done without it before and I guess it won't be the last time either. This time it will be more challenging though, with 2 little ones."

July 14, 1979

"I stayed up late tonight so that I could have a bath. I had to heat the water on the stove till the tub was full. I felt like a pioneer."

Sept 20, 1979

"I had a meeting tonight and while we were gone Dad snuck into our house and filled our fridge with groceries. What a sweetheart!!"


I'm especially grateful for the good, steady job that Ryan has, for our family and friends, and for a Heavenly Father and Savior who love us and have always been there for me when I've needed them! Life is good!

Excuse-me-a-boo!

Nate is such a creative, imaginative little boy and I love to see the things his little mind comes up with. In October every time he sneezed or burped or passed gas he would say "excuse-me-a-boo". When I asked him why he did this he said it was because Halloween was in October. Without fail he would say it every time he had to say excuse me. November came along and he told me he couldn't say it any longer because Halloween was over. He needed something to say for Remembrance day so I suggested excuse-me-a-poppy. Yep, he's still saying it every time he has to say excuse me, and also has Ty and McKenna saying it. He told me he's going to say excuse-me-a-snow in December (although he could technically start saying that now). We'll see how long this lasts. I love the way his little mind works!

Just for a little update, McKenna is in a big girl bed and doing really well. She also tells me about 25% of the time that she has to go potty. I guess its a step. She's almost not my baby anymore.

Momma quote!

Yes, most of the time Mother's know best!...

"Today I am thankful that I don't have/need to sit in front of the t.v. all night. I'm thankful I have more imagination than that!"

Thanks Mom. I needed to be reminded.

Halloween...finally.

Let me tell you, I have the worst luck when it comes to camera's. I can't find the cord to charge my camera so I've been using Ryan's work camera, and like mine, its not a very good one. Then I have to wait for Ryan to transfer them to his lap top, and then to our computer. Its quite an annoying process hence the really late post and pics. I think this whole process really turns me off from taking pics so its lucky I even got any Halloween pics (I actually didn't even take any of Ty and McKenna...I know, awful huh).

Halloween is definitely not my favorite. I could live without Halloween and actually be quite happy. But because I love my kids, we participate. The kids are really into Harry Potter right now. Easy, right. We've got Harry, Ron, and Hermione. My sister made their robes and they turned out fantastic! She is really quite amazing. I bought Gryffindor symbols from Orlando and she ironed them on. Perfect! We really only focused on Nate since he had a school Halloween party. We bought a wand from the Park, and this key chain holder that goes around your neck with the gryffindor colors, which my sister made into a tie (really, she's amazing). Then I searched, and searched for some glasses that looked like Harry Potter's. I finally found some that were not perfect, still a bit oval but the roundest I could find. Yet again my sister pulled through and took some plier's to them and rounded them out so that they were perfect. We drew a little lightening scar, and he was good to go. He looked so good. The perfect little Harry Potter. He had a great time at his school Halloween party!










Halloween day we went to my Grandma's to play with all the cousin's. Everyone looked so cute in their costumes. Then we went to our ward trunk or treat. (we park our cars in our church parking lot and hand out candy from our trunk). It was very successful. we went around the parking lot once, and then we were done. The kids had fun and got a good stash each. The kids just wore there robes over their jackets. Very simple. I'll have to get a good pic of the kids in their robes so you can see how awesome they are. Anyway, it was successful. Glad its over. Now we can focus on Christmas! Yeah. By the way, I'm already done shopping for the kids, minus stockings! Feels great.

Journey Home- Day 5!

We woke up early and headed to the airport. Our flight left an hour later because a little boy puked on the plane before it took off, so they had to clean it up and they had to get a medic to come and check him over before we left. We were flying to Seattle so it was a 6 hour flight. I actually slept a bit and the flight seemed to go by quickly. Its a good thing we had a couple of hours in Seattle so we weren't in a huge rush to get on our next flight. We grabbed some lunch and caught are next flight to Calgary which was also running behind. I don't know why but both times we landed my left ear hurt so bad. It was plugged and couldn't handle the pressure I guess. It seriously hurt so much I was almost in tears. It was fine once we landed. We made it to Calgary and through custom's quickly and were on our way home. We were anxious to get home and see the kids and give them their gifts. They were out at Adam and Britt's in Nobleford, so we went there to pick them up. McKenna was so funny when we came in the door. She acted like she just couldn't believe it was us. She kept saying our names over and over and laughing and touching us. It was cute. The boys on the other hand were like "did you get me a wand?, where's my chocolate frog". It was fun to give them their gifts and see how excited they were.

We had a great time, but sure missed these cute little faces!

Orlando-Day 3 & 4!

Day #3

This was kind of a relaxing day for us. We knew our feet couldn't take two back-to-back days at the Park. We slept in and relaxed until we headed over to Wet N Wild Waterpark. It was right across the street from our hotel, so we walked over when it opened. It was a beautiful day and the park never got very busy. Perfection! The slides were all a lot of fun, and they had this fun sand/beach area where we loved relaxing! we spent about 5 hours there and then bummed at the hotel until supper time. We went to a really good Japanese restaurant. My lettuce wraps were fantastic! Then we checked out this huge out door mall. Then headed home to bed. We wanted to get up even earlier the next morning to make it to the Park before it opened.








Day #4

We woke up bright and early and headed to Universal again. We got there before the gates opened. When they opened we headed straight for Hogwarts and the Forbidden Journey ride again. We only had to wait 10 minutes this time. We brought our camera on the ride this time too so we could take pics of the path leading to the ride. We went through the castle past Dumbledore's office, the Dark Arts room, and Gryffindor common room. It was really neat. We went on all the rides all over again and then headed to Universal Studio's (we were at Island's of Adventure) played there for a few hours and then ate a late lunch at the Hardrock Cafe. We spent a few more hours at Island's of Adventure, buying all our souvenier's, and having one last drink of butter beer before we headed back to the hotel. We were exhausted and our feet were so sore. We ordered pizza, packed all of our stuff getting ready for an early flight and long day of travel the next morning.